


All Was Well in the End

by Niccolò Machiavelli (Piccolo_Machiavelli)



Category: 15th Century CE RPF, 16th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF, Machiavelli - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 17:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9196658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piccolo_Machiavelli/pseuds/Niccol%C3%B2%20Machiavelli
Summary: Machiavelli finally returns from wherever he was at, and he has brought with him one hell of a story.





	

“You fucking idiot.”

The words stunned Machiavelli into silence. Tears welled up in his eyes, which were already watering when he first started the conversation. He had spent the past ten minutes in a panic, telling his wife about his latest sexual encounter. Marietta was furious when she heard. She had sent him to pick up vegetables in the marketplace and she had hung a basket of clothes on his arm, telling him to have them cleaned. What she didn't expect was her husband entering the house hours later, sweating profusely, and shrieking like an infant. 

It was a simple adventure. He had snuck out hundreds of times before at night and been to the washerwoman’s house regularly. Why did she even have to be there? Why couldn't it have been a normal encounter? Internally, he was scolding himself. On no other day would he have gone near a woman with a towel over her head with a ten-foot pole, let alone when he was by himself in the middle of the night and desperately seeking release.   
He made the mistake of removing the towel afterwards and ended up throwing up on her. 

It was a silly accident, really, he tried to convince himself. Even if her breath smelled like rotting fruit and she slightly resembled Lorenzo de’ Medici, you did what you had to. 

He still felt horribly sick to his stomach and Marietta’s harsh words were not helping him. He rocked back and forth to calm himself as a pang of guilt hit him. 

“Please, please, listen to me, I swear to God, I’m sorry, I just-” Machiavelli blushed. He hated being the one to apologize submissively. “I couldn’t help it, I mean, what would you have done in my-”

“No, you listen to me, since I am the only one here thinking logically!” Marietta snapped, slapping him. He groaned. That was also not helping his illness. “We are married. I am your wife. It is your duty to be faithful. I am faithful to you. I protect you. Unbeknownst to you, I saved your life. A guard visited me today, requesting to see you. I made up some lie to keep your location a secret, but he grabbed me by the collar and I had to tell him where you were. He would’ve gotten it out of me in a much more painful way if I had not. I did not tell him which marketplace, but he may have gone looking. You could have died! It’s not safe! What were you…” she trailed off, realizing that her husband was nigh on inconsolable. 

Machiavelli shot her a look of worry. “What do you mean, they came to visit you? Here? And he grabbed you?” he shrieked, attempting to futilely pull himself off of the bed Marietta had insisted he sit on. “I’ll kill him if he comes back here, I swear it, I will! No one touches you like th-” he forgot about his transgression for a brief moment when he realized his wife had tried to lie for him. He knew she couldn’t if her life depended on it, which it did at that moment, but he felt especially remorseful when he reflected on the fact that his wife was almost killed while he was off with a prostitute. 

“Shh, calm down, will you? I would have reached for a knife. Don’t worry, I’m safe, and so are you,” Marietta murmured, massaging his shoulders. She didn’t want to forgive him, but his sudden outburst of passionate anger and his intense shaking fits made her reconsider. 

“How am I supposed to calm down when some pig could’ve-” he struggled to form words. “Well, you know. And I just barely escaped a confrontation between myself and the… horrendous creature I think might have been a woman, but now I’m not so sure and-”

Marietta cut him off by placing her fingers over his mouth. “Listen to yourself; you’ve gone half-crazy. What matters to me is that you’re home now. And, of course, that you’ve accomplished what needed to be done. I’ll bring you a glass of water and handle the laundry. You did, I assume, bring it back?” she looked concerned when she realized he hadn’t been holding anything when he rushed inside.

Machiavelli buried his face in his hands. “Nay, I must’ve left it all at the house, and there is no way in hell I am going back there to get it!” he cried, shivering when he pictured the prostitute. 

She stroked his head, planting a kiss on it. “Don’t concern yourself with it. We can always buy new clothes from a different market, can’t we, my dear?” Marietta whispered, standing up. She figured her husband was parched after running all the way back to the house.

Once in the kitchen, she scooped water from a bucket into a glass. She didn’t care that it was almost precisely measured for a meal. Machiavelli needed it much more than any recipe or dinner called for.  
She raced back and embraced him, passing him the glass with her free hand. “Drink, please. You need this,” she urged. 

He took it, hands still shaking, and swallowed the contents of the glass in one gulp. “Grazie, Marietta,” he forced out, feeling tears gather in his eyes again. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have done it, but-”

“Shh, no more words,” Marietta interrupted, desperate to silence her perturbed husband. “You weren’t thinking straight. I can understand but not sympathize. Don’t do it again, all right? We are a family.” She squeezed Machiavelli tight as he put down the glass. 

Machiavelli stared down at her arms, which were wrapped around him like a vise. “I swear on my life, I won’t do it again,” he exhaustedly rambled off another apology he had yet to keep. He didn’t even know why Marietta had stayed with him this long. “So much of a family that the government bound us to one another like slaves.” Despite his playfully scathing comment, Machiavelli was able to crack a smile through his tears. 

Marietta giggled and lay her head on his shoulder. “You’re never getting rid of me. You know that, right? Ever. Even when you descend into the depths of Hell, I’ll be attached to you. I’ll always be there for you, Niccolò,” she told him, sighing heavily. “And if you’re not always there for me, or where you should be, I may have to use this-” Marietta took one of her arms away from him and reached for something in her pocket, pulling out a small, sharp dagger, “for something else.”

He let out a small cry of surprise and fear before wrenching himself out of Marietta’s arms. “All right, I get it, I get it, woman! My God!” he uttered, instinctively reaching for the spot where he usually kept his. It was no secret that he carried a small knife on the side of his leg in case a diplomatic mission went awry, but he had sequestered it inside a small box while in pleasant company. 

She laughed, throwing the knife aside and tackling him. “Oh, you know I’d never do that. I’m just playing with you. Slaves aren’t supposed to attack one another. Besides, my dear, I wouldn’t use the knife on you anyway, because I might need that for-”

“That’s quite enough, my darling,” Machiavelli replied, embracing his wife in return. “Let us enjoy a blissfully peaceful moment while it lasts.”

They fell asleep next to one another, calmed by the silence and the beauty of the night. Marietta had already tucked the children into bed, although she was expecting them to wake up bawling at any minute; Machiavelli cared little for anything else in that moment besides the comfort of his own home and his (slightly dysfunctional) family; and all was well in the end.


End file.
